Toronto firm aims to be real estate portfolio management trailblazer

The dramatic pace of advancement that has brought the advent of automation and big data has revolutionized just about every industry, and an innovative commercial property player appears to be preparing to take the next big step for the real estate segment.

The Toronto-based firm Altus Group Ltd., which formerly operated as a commercial real estate consultancy for Canadian clients, has reorganized itself into Altus Analytics in a bid to establish an international standard for commercial real estate portfolio management.

“Companies are looking at investing in real estate on a global basis, and that’s a phenomenon that is going on at a time when there really isn’t a good solution to managing real estate on a global basis,” Altus CEO Robert Courteau told Susan Smith of The Globe and Mail.

Altus Analytics would be designed to facilitate attribution analysis, which would show how various asset types are doing in different areas. The system would also allow clients to monitor their properties’ quarterly performance, especially when compared to industry averages.

“It’s fairly sophisticated and we’re first to market with that ability. Nobody else can provide that level of detail,” Courteau stated.

The executive noted that such a platform would permit greater transparency and efficiency for large institutions like banks and pension funds, which are now introducing themselves as new players in the global real estate sector.

“We don’t want to just be a service provider, we don’t want to be just a software provider and we don’t want to be just a data provider. We want to have an information platform where the CEO has the tools, data and software to be able to manage portfolios globally,” he explained.